


All That You Need Is In Your Soul

by verucasalt123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean's music, Gen, Gen Work, POV Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Dean's thoughts about the music he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That You Need Is In Your Soul

**Author's Note:**

> for spn_rambleon

Without failure, Dean could feel his heart speed a little every single time he heard the intro to “Crazy Train”. Maybe it was because the guitar riff was flawless. Maybe it was because “going off the rails” was something he could relate to intimately. Maybe it was because his father had loved that song.

His childhood memories were clearer, more accurate than Sam’s. Probably ‘cause he’d been older and better able to remember the small details. As kids riding around the country in the Impala, Sam had mostly slept or, when he got older, sulked, in the backseat. But Dean rode in the front. He watched their dad drum his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of “More Than A Feeling” and “Hot Blooded”, and it made him realize that this music meant something to John. So it should mean something to Dean, too. Right?

The opening riff to “You Shook Me” added a bit of swagger to his step, poured on a bit more than the baseline amount of _cocky_ to his grin when they were in a bar and it came on the jukebox. His pool games were never better than the nights when he could hear AC/DC in the background. And God knows he’d gotten more than his fair share of action from hot girls in bars as he flashed his confident grin at them over the pool table while that song played.

The hard truth hit him a few years later, he knew he’d never want to hear “Highway To Hell” again, and he felt like it was a loss. Like when those hellhounds came for him, they took something away that he’d never get back, even when he was topside again.

Dean had developed his own tastes over the years, but they weren’t all that different than his dad’s. “Ramble On” held a special place in his heart, and he hummed it in his head while they were on long road trips. It’s all they ever did, move from place to place.

It wouldn’t be until years later that Dean made the connection with that lyric about ‘ten years to the day’. When he was younger, it was the part about having no time to spread roots that stuck with him. That wasn’t their life. The Winchesters had no business settling down anywhere. They were out looking, on a mission, maybe not for the girl of their dreams, but to avenge the girl of their dreams. Sam had tried to explain to Dean that there were references to these books he’d read in middle school, but Dean didn’t really listen much. That song meant something to him, something much more than any stupid fantasy book that Sam had geeked out over when he was twelve. 

One run-through of “Simple Man” could lift his spirits more than just about anything else. He was becoming that man, the one who’d been encouraged to do what made him happy without coveting those things that may have been had by others.

Dean remembered the far-away look in his father’s eyes whenever “Dust In The Wind” and “Don’t Fear The Reaper” filtered out from the radio to the car. And no, he never asked. Never said, hey dad, what is it about this music that you like so much?

Sam had asked _him_ , though. Of course he had. Once he got past the phase where he just mocked Dean for his music collection and refusal to replace the car’s old cassette player for a CD player, he finally did ask. 

“What’s so appealing to you about this, Dean? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a decent Zeppelin tune as much as the next guy, but Foreigner? Ozzy? Kansas? It’s all 30 years old.” The music was just another aspect of their life that Dean had embraced and Sam had shied away from. A way of distancing himself, Dean guessed, of making himself believe he belonged somewhere else. 

Dean didn’t give a shit about how old it was. This was the music of his childhood, the soundtrack of his life on the road with his brother and his dad. Johnny Cash lettin’ that lonesome whistle blow his blues away when he was just a little boy, air-drumming along with Phil Rudd to “Back In Black” as a kid, imagining Hetfield strapped to the electric chair after he learned to drive. 

He had stayed once in the car to listen to the end of “Freebird” while John and Sam got them a table at a diner. Sam had looked at him funny, but John had just smiled and reminded him to lock the door when he came out. And yeah, Sam was only ten, but did he really not _get it_? This song was their life. How bad did it suck to have to leave behind things you wanted to keep? A lot, that was how much, but that was the way they lived (and the reason Dean tried so hard to never want to keep anything). It wasn’t going to change. The bird was their family. On that day, in that parking lot, in that little town, the bird was Dean, and John, and Sam.


End file.
